


Not for Lack of Trying

by sabinelagrande



Category: Stargate: Atlantis
Genre: Community: mcsmooch, Episode: s01e02 Rising, Episode: s02e08 Conversion, First Kiss, Misunderstandings, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-04-18
Updated: 2009-04-18
Packaged: 2017-10-06 10:52:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/52896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabinelagrande/pseuds/sabinelagrande
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John's really been at this for quite some time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not for Lack of Trying

Unbeknownst to Rodney, there were really a lot of days that could have featured John and Rodney's first kiss.

The first day they met was actually almost the first time they kissed. John sat down in the chair, and it was- it was like nothing else. It was like it knew him, the way it brushed across the back of his senses, the way he could almost hear _welcome home_ in the hard blue light if he concentrated hard enough.

And then Rodney'd come blustering in, looking all amazed and orange and kind of cute in a really dorky way, and suddenly given him the universe.

When he'd looked up into the heavens, all laid out and sparkling just for him, he couldn't decide whether to run screaming into the snow or jump up and down or start crying or kiss Rodney right on the mouth for showing him. But all those things would have required leaving the chair, so instead he just made some smart-ass comment and gawked for a long time.

(That one wasn't really about Rodney, though- he'd probably have kissed General O'Neill and Weir and Daniel Jackson and Beckett and Ford and Grodin, too- so maybe it didn't count.)

The first time he almost kissed Rodney specifically, he'd only just gotten done kissing Chaya. And, of course, Rodney caught him and bawled him out, because god forbid he have a romantic evening with the nice alien girl without someone coming along to rain on his parade.

John had gotten all the way back to his quarters before he realized that it had _in no way_ been a fight about base security; had he known at the time, he could've just given Rodney a nice, reassuring kiss and saved a lot of trouble.

(John spent most of the rest of the night grinning like an idiot and wondering why it'd taken him so long to notice.)

And then, he'd all but begged for Rodney to kiss him after the incident with the retrovirus.

Carson put him back in a coma for a day or two while the stem cell treatment did its thing. He still couldn't talk for a couple days after that; every time he tried, all that came out were sad little keening noises that made everyone- including John- really nervous. He couldn't remember this time period very well; it was like trying to recall the plot of a movie you'd only seen when you were really drunk- some stuff happened, and then there were these aliens, and then maybe they'd found the car, finally?

What he could remember, though, was that it really messed with his emotions. He felt really grumpy and sad and inconsolable and irrational all the time, like a little kid (Ronon, being somewhat less charitable and more blunt, had asked him later if it felt like he was on the rag; John was really going to have to start reconsidering letting him hang out with the Marines). So he sat in the isolation room, in the dark, and sulked.

When Rodney came to visit him, he came at what might have been John's lowest point. He'd snapped a string on his guitar trying to play it with his big stupid talons, places he didn't know he had itched, people kept coming in to poke him with needles and make unsatisfied noises at him- absolutely everything was wrong. John was just lucid enough to be aware that he was acting like a big baby, but not nearly in control enough to stop it. He'd probably have cried, even; except that he still seemed to have nictitating membranes, and he wasn't really sure that he could.

"Good evening, Colonel Grover," Rodney said, putting on his bravely-cheerful face, which promptly fell once he saw John's expression. "Are you okay? Are you hurt? Do you need something?"

He held out his arms to Rodney in what he'd always thought was the universal gesture for _Come over here, give me a hug and a kiss, and tell me it's going to be okay, you stupid monkey_. Rodney backed away, looking a little terrified. John shook his arms at him, trying to make him understand; he opened his mouth to speak, but the noise made them both flinch.

And so that could have been John and Rodney's first kiss, if Rodney had gotten it (and assuming he'd have been okay with kissing somebody who was still at least thirty percent bug and one hundred percent male); but instead, John flung himself into his bed and sulked some more, shying away when Rodney tried to pet his hair.

(The next day when he woke up, there was a little stuffed dragon on his bed, wearing a sign that John couldn't read. It was Athosian, smelling earthy like the mainland and soft like incense, but it definitely smelled like Rodney, too. Cuddling with it made a great addition to John's sulking routine.

John had resigned him to his sock drawer after he felt like a human again, but he still patted his head for luck before missions sometimes. He was a little blue in places from rubbing against John's face while he was molting, but that was okay. It gave him character.)

He came the closest to actually kissing Rodney on Triceria, where the local population really liked them and were prone to giving them feasts with tons of their local liquor, which tasted like blackberries and _awesome_ and must have been about eighty proof. They also had really great furniture- these big soft beds that John liked even more than the blackberry schnapps (and even better _after_ lots of blackberry schnapps). He didn't even pretend to mind that he and Rodney had to share one- it was still more room than three of the Ancients' weird little kiddy beds (which everybody but John seemed to have gotten replacements for) put together.

Rodney had passed out as soon as they got back to their room, flopping down on his stomach and burrowing under the covers. John got mostly undressed and climbed in next to him, feeling sort of bored and restless and not really ready to sleep.

It suddenly struck him that he was on another planet in another galaxy, all alone in this room with Rodney, where absolutely nobody could possibly reach them. They could just lay here in their big bed, together, and- and sleep. Or make out. Or play grab ass and talk about Star Wars. The point was, nobody was ever going to know what happened as long as they were in this room.

John bent close, poised to brush a kiss over Rodney's head; maybe he'd wake up, maybe he wouldn't, but at least John would have done it.

Before he could, Rodney farted.

Now, although the crush he'd been steadily feeding would not have been inappropriate for a fifteen-year-old girl, John was a forty-year-old man. Forty-year-old men accepted the inevitability and inherently uncontrollable nature of certain bodily functions. Forty-year-old men were not prone to giving up their ridiculous crushes just because of a little thing like gas.

That being said, John was a guy, and a drunk one at that, and he was just never going to be mature enough not to think it was totally hilarious.

Rodney'd woken up at the sound of his poorly-muffled laughter and socked him with a pillow, and John decided the only acceptable payback involved a Dutch oven, and that had pretty much put the kibosh on that romantic interlude.

(Three missions later, John accidentally let one go in front of the leader of M74-932; ten minutes after that, they were running like their asses were on fire and the stargate was the only thing that could put them out. Rodney _still_ hadn't let him live that one down.)

Then, of course, there was that time on M2T-989, where the chief's daughter went one step beyond the call of duty for chiefs' daughters and decided it was a really good idea to drug John's dinner and have her wicked way with him.

She never got to the having-her-way part, because Teyla cold-cocked her before she could. John had never seen her jump to a non-diplomatic solution quite so quickly, but really, he only wished she'd done it before he was already halfway through eating.

Teyla and Ronon went to return Little Miss Machiavelli to her father- who, as it turned out, had three young, strapping men from fine families already picked out to woo his daughter and was actually very grateful that somebody finally knocked some sense into her. Rodney, probably and wrongly assuming that he was the only one in absolutely no danger from John, walked John back to the gate.

He didn't know that he was taking John on what had to be the longest walk of his life. He insisted on holding John's arm the entire time, presumably so that he couldn't slip away and waylay some unsuspecting native; Rodney, of course, didn't know that every time his fingers touched John's skin it sent what felt like an electric pulse up John's spine. There was no way he could have realized that every time he slid his fingers down John's wrist to check his pulse, John couldn't stop thinking about how he'd really prefer to have those fingers sliding elsewhere. And he didn't notice, focused on the path as he was, that John was staring at his neck like maybe John was a vampire who hadn't eaten since the Hapsburgs were around.

John very nearly threw him down and kissed him until he just couldn't breathe; the thing was, though, that he'd have done a whole lot more than kissing, whether Rodney was on board for it or not. He might have even skipped the kissing entirely.

By the time the gate was in sight, John couldn't take it anymore; he had to push Rodney into the nearest soft-looking foliage and make a run for it. Rodney was still yelling epithets and Star Trek references at him as John dove through the gate.

(Oddly enough, that day did end up being John and Carson's first- and last- kiss; but Carson was getting used to crazy men jumping him, so he was really very cool about the whole thing.)

And those were just big things that he remembered, to say nothing of the little ones- all the times they almost died, whenever they got competitive over video games or RC races, every time Rodney got excited about some cool new discovery and grinned his crooked little grin.

So it was a little weird how John and Rodney's first kiss actually did happen, and not at all what John expected.

In sheer defiance of any of John's carefully laid plans, Rodney just walked into his room one afternoon. "Could you stand up for a second?" he asked; John raised an eyebrow at him. "Just humor me."

John got to his feet, rolling his eyes. Rodney let out a deep breath, like he'd been holding it for a long time, and stepped in really close to him. He took John's hands and put them on his waist. John swallowed hard, trying to keep his face calm and bored. "If you wanted me to teach you how to dance, McKay-"

"There's no talking," Rodney told him. He took another deep breath, steeling himself. He stepped forward a little, put his hands on John's shoulders, leaned in, closed his eyes, and-

Totally missed John's mouth.

"Fuck," he said passionately.

John was almost starting to feel bad for him. "Do you want me to-"

"No, dammit," Rodney swore. "I've got this." And with that, he grabbed John by the ears (which was a little uncomfortable, but John was aware they were easy targets) and pulled him in again.

And oh, wow. After he actually found John's mouth, it was- wow. Better than John had imagined, which was saying something, because John had imagined it a whole lot. Despite the awkwardness of the set-up, Rodney kissed him like it was his god-given right to do so. John just went with it, opening his mouth a little wider, sliding his hands down to Rodney's ass and pulling him closer.

After several long, languorous minutes, Rodney pulled reluctantly away, looking at John expectantly; and instead of any of the suave things John had planned to say, John said, "Uh."

Rodney's face fell. "You didn't like it?"

John shook his head. "It's not that, it's just- what the hell took you so long?"

Rodney looked at him, completely dumbfounded. "What do you mean?" John just stared him; surely he had to have noticed before now. "Look, maybe you've had some weird gay obsession with me for years or something, but I only realized that-" he indicated the two of them- "_this_, like, a week ago."

"You've got to be shitting me," John muttered. "Rodney, everybody knows about- about _this_. The _Genii_ probably figured it out before you did."

"You ass!" he said, thumping John in the chest. "Why didn't you say something?"

John narrowed his eyes at Rodney. "I was told there was going to be no talking."

"Right, right, talking later." He kissed John again, lightly. "Much later." Another kiss. "Maybe never."

"Good plan," he replied, pressing his mouth to Rodney's (his new favorite way to shut Rodney up).


End file.
